Re: Why doesn't VIA RAid Tool recognize my RAID drive?

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Stan Hilliard wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 02:27:06 -0400, Paul <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Stan Hilliard wrote:
Why doesn't VIA RAID Tool recognize my RAID drive?

I have three physical HDDs. They are identical 250GB SATA 7200 Seagate
Barracuda. A pair of them is set up as a raid 0.

The VIA RAID Tool v4.04 shows the following: Controller 0, Channel 0, Master as not in any disk array, 238,475 MB
Channel 1, Master Device not existing, image of drive has red X
Channel 2, Master Device not existing, Slave device not existing,
images of 2 drives have red Xs.

Device manager shows two items under "SCSI and RAID Controllers":
ULi SATA/RAID Controller (M1689/M1567)
VIA VT6421 RAID Controller

The motherboard is an ABIT KU8.

Shouldn't the VIA RAid Tool recognize my RAID drive?

Stan Hilliard
I got an Abit KU8 manual here, from the archive.

http://web.archive.org/web/20051125022252/http://static.tigerdirect.com/pdf/ABIT_KU8_Series_Manual.pdf

The main chip is ULI M1689. That chip is both the
Northbridge and the Southbridge.

Drivers are still maintained on the Nvidia site (as
Nvidia bought ULI and crushed the company).

http://www.nvidia.com/page/uli_drivers.html

I don't see a VT6421 in the design. Are you saying,
that the RAID offered by ULI, is VIA compatible and
somehow the VIA software works with it ?

Have you purchased a separate PCI card with a VIA VT6421
chip on it ?

The two drives that form the RAID array run off the motherboard. I
also have a PPA 1301 Serial ATA 2 Port PCI Controller Card with two
ports which drive SATA hard drives containing data.

I'm trying to understand why the VIA RAID Tool is
involved here. For example, I don't see a VIA
download, on the Abit (uabit.com) site. (The
Abit FTP server is broken right now.)

http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/download/download_driver_detail.php?pFILE_TYPE=Driver&pMAIN_TYPE=Motherboard&pTITLE_ON_SCREEN=KU8&pSOCKET_TYPE=Socket%20754

Paul


The disks on the motherboard, are controlled by a ULI interface.
Now, I don't know whether ULI provided RAID drivers and management
software or not.

And the jokers at PPA, appear to have issued different designs with
the same part number. For example, this PPA 1301 appears to have a
VIA chip on it. Notice there is an IDE connector at the top of the
card, plus two SATA connectors (one is faceplate mounted). Check
and see if that IDE connector is present, or that there are solder
pads present for the installation of the IDE connector.

http://www.ppa-usa.com/products/sata/images_sata/1301-250.jpg

But, I was also able to find a PPA 1301, using a Silicon Image
SIL3112. That card has no IDE connector, which is a distinguishing
feature. The PCI card design would be different, in order to
use that entirely different chip.

The VIA RAID tool, if present and installed on your system,
can only be used to manage VIA RAID drives. If the PCI card
you're using right now, had a VT6421 or whatever, then using
VIA RAID management software makes sense. And only, to manage
the disks on that PCI card.

RAID disks contain "metadata" or a "reserved sector" that
records membership in a RAID array, JBOD, or whatever. The
metadata format used by different manufacturers, do not
conform to any standards. And that is why, you cannot use
one company's RAID management software, to manage the
RAID on some other company's RAID chip. It is because
the RAID management software cannot read the metadata.
Tomshardware did some tests to prove the lack of
interoperability - the only kinds of things that work,
are say, moving a Promise RAID disk, to another Promise
RAID controller board. The metadata may be standardized
enough, to transfer between controllers made by the
same company. But you wouldn't expect a pair of RAID
disks prepared on an Nvidia chip, to be recognized as
RAID when plugged into a Promise controller board.

If your RAID drives are on ULI, then the VIA software
probably cannot read the metadata. The VIA software
probably also expects to talk to a VIA driver.

Paul
.

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